I have never been too satisfied with my pasta photos at home. I tried to style it differently this time by making a little mound rather than spreading it on the plate. I took some pictures under regular yellow bulbs and some with the flash. The only problem was that I could not decide on which was better. What do you think?
Well I did say I was going to make a quick fix pasta and I just did. I admit that I played around a bit with my recipe, Sardinia. But that’s fine. It was my recipe to start with. I drew inspiration from the lovely pizza called Da Vinci which we had at the Ristorante Pizzeria at Montreux and Zurich. Now the crux of the Da Vinci was that you were able to taste each individual ingredient as they come together as one happy family in your mouth.
So here’s what I did with the excellent tinned sardines that I picked up at a Migros store at Switzerland.
- Boiled pasta (I used a mix of penne and fusili) and set aside
- Bought veggies in time to get my sous chef designate, Banu, to chop mushrooms and bell peppers in the afternoon
- Began by heating some olive oil and oil in which the sardines were preserved in a non stick pan
- Put some finely chopped garlic and then half a chopped tomato and sauteed them
- Added a pack of chopped button mushrooms and tossed them together
- Added the finely chopped preserved sardines to this
- Then the boiled pasta, salt, a bit of crushed black pepper and paprika and tossed them together for 4-5 minutes
- Added the bell peppers and tossed them
- And our family secret ingredient – chopped green chillies!!!
- Added fresh finely chopped basil leaves and covered the pan and shut the flame (you don’t want the basil to cook)
- To plate the dish I put some of the pasta on a plate. I then put some shards of the lovely Gruyere that K had picked from Sante at Pali Market. This was a trick I learnt from the Da Vinci pizza. It allowed folks to bite the cheese and enjoy it in its full glory rather than letting it fade into the background which happens if you melt the cheese in the sauce
- I then covered this with some more pasta so that the cheese pieces were sandwiched in
You should have seen the look of ecstasy on K’s face when she took the first bite. The only thing which would match up would be the look of ecstasy on mine!
